Essay: The death of Power-Knowledge and the connections to classical
contexts of Rhetoric

Essay: The death of Power-Knowledge and the connections to classical
contexts of Rhetoric

Essay: The death of Power-Knowledge and the connections to classical
contexts of Rhetoric

Author: Alan Walker 26 August 2008

Following the philosophies of the Stoics and Cynics,
journeying through Determinism and Rhetoric; on to Modernism and Post
Modernism I draw conclusions on the formation of small internet communities.
Rhetoric has been shaped into the modern concepts of Semantics and Discourse.
Thus we have a golden thread running from ancient to modern thought, but
with broadly the same values-structure as those in ancient Greece and
Rome. Discourse as defined by the modern philosopher Foucault encompasses
not only traditional modes of communication: speech and the written, but
also new media.

Combining the Latin-derived etymology of Discourse -
"running to and from" with the definition placed on the term "the limits
of acceptable speech" by American Post Structuralist philosopher Judith
Butler (who incidentally contrasts Discourse with it's mirror image Censorship
in her work). In other words, within the rules of Discourse you are allowed
to put forth ideas based on ideas in a context that are supported and
complement the internal logic of your argument. Thus two perfectly acceptable
threads of Discourse can be assembled with opposing points of view on
the same topic. Succinctly exampled by the aphorism "War is the terrorism
of the rich upon the poor and terrorism is the war of the poor on the
rich.

Where things get interesting is when one drills down
into Structuralism - distant relations to Stoicism and Cynicism with their
basis on causal events. The basis of Structuralism: "systems of related
elements" self contained, self regulated and self transforming units of
ideas which leads us back to the fundamental of Rhetoric.

And the point of this Discourse: to try and fit instrumental,
non lyric music into the slots in accepted Structuralist philosophy: to
regard experimentation as a form of Discourse - using building blocks
to express an idea as metaphor, a parallel that does not have a literal
equivalent but conveys meaning nonetheless. By the use of metaphor as
the bridge, the master composer will translate, circumventing literal
language, subliming, if you will, a sound into a mental association. This
association will be formed by fuzzy logic associations based upon the
experience of the listener. And within the confines of Structuralist theory,
the listener will need either a knowledge of the genre the musician is
operating within or some visual or literal clue to seed the intended associations.
Piece titles, websites and cover-art provide a stepping off point for
listeners less versed in the genre and will provide associations and clues
to point them in the right direction.

Foucault, in the beehive of ideas that is late 20th
century philosophy headed off into new territory with his refinement of
the theories of Discourse, ending up "examining the variety of experience
of individuals and groups", adding another dimension to the accepted structure
of Discourse, moving away from single minded truth-seeking and embracing
the infinity of possibilities opened up by context. So all texts within
the orbit of the Discourse are acceptable within the context of that discourse
as long as the internal logic within that context is watertight. Foucault
went on to elaborate - into the politics of ideas - that the legitimisation
of ideas is based upon truths, how they are maintained and what power
relations they carry with them.and. that power is always present and can
both produce and constrain the truth. This theory was posited before the
internet was born, and the opportunities for the democratisation of ideas
on the world wide web undercuts it somewhat, returning the boundaries
of discourse to their Structuralist beginnings (in this authors view)
- causal-based, context-watertight thought open to the great and the small.

In addition to the cultural associations and philosophical
structures of explanation are the physical effects induced by sequences
and spacing of notes; effects which are less easy to place and which may
work directly on the brain in the physiological sense, separate from cultural
historical associations. Indeed that is where cultural associations may
originate - with fundamental feelings stimulated by a certain kind of
music to those that the music seeks to depict, that the artist has instinctively
shaped. Proving the physiological associative effect would not however
be impossible - most forms of music-cultural contexts are rigidly established.
Putting music into neutral laboratory conditions and interpreting the
associations would have to be on the basis of taking a culturally isolated
individual and playing a succession of different pieces of music that
have established cultural contexts and seeing if the individual made the
same associations to those contexts. In other words they are isolated
from the established structures of Discourse but draw the same conclusions.
I personally doubt whether the physiological associations would win over
the cultural ones.

And the point of this essay? To support and reinforce
my agreement with the statement "art is not art without a social and political
context". Add to that "art is impossible outside the confines of Discourse".
If there is no fundamental linkage between sound and association, making
noise with no connection to cultural Discourse is pointless. Music to
be music has to have an intimacy or a proximity to culture, even if the
connection is a distant one as in the case of "experimental" music - which
is not experimental in the extreme sense because it takes existing contexts
and mixes them up or pushes them further than others have in the past.
And in labelling it "experimental" it immediately positions itself within
Discourse. John Cage's 4'33'' supports the idea that silence within the
boundaries of musical Discourse can be regarded as music, albeit ironically
by placing it in a musical context in the same way that placing a pile
of bricks in an art gallery context defines it as art simply by virtue
of the fact that it is in a gallery.

So I willingly submit my own music for categorisation
and placement in the complex taxonomy that defines the Discourse of modern
electronic music. I want to belong, and I seek the opinion and approval
of my peers attempting to achieve this. I am not an outsider and although
I experiment in the broad sense of finding new ways to express myself,
it is within the confines of refining and selecting from a finite pool
of possibilities, and within the comfort zone of classic Discourse.

And in seeking those associations in history, I am at
odds with the Baudrillardian notion, in his Discourse on the end of history
- that globalisation has ended history. That theory held water in the
short period between the end of the cold war and 9/11. And now, post 9/11,
Baudrillard's ideas seem redundant. New ideas or rather refinements of
old ideas are assuming prominence, driven by the ideologies of commodity
geography and the mis-synchrony of cultures. A new Discourse is taking
shape, and history is reinvented, the fire is re-kindled with the real
possibility of the Old Testament plagues of pestilence, disease and war
on our doorstep. A reversal of globalisation is happening and with it
the potential to return to classical, causal notions of Structuralism
and the confines of Rhetoric may be the only way to describe the world
in simple digestible terms. Post-modernism and Modernism may be over-elaboratisations;
too many decorations on the Christmas tree of ideas. Complexity is best
described in simple reductive terms else the complexity of complexity
multiplies in complexity becoming a meaningless circle of words.

Post 9/11, new artistic communities are developing;
fractured shards of the globalised music industry, villages of ideas paradoxically
using the global communication mode of the world wide web; micro-communities
that form almost organically as nodes of like-minded individuals are drawn
together by commonality of vision, and the possibilities afforded by meta-data
sifts. Taking refuge from the storm of ideas in their comforting niches,
the Discourse as shaped by the democracy of ideas is being confined to
narrow parameters on a human scale with a return to the elegance of simplicity
and the rejection of flamboyant theories of possibility.

Coda: This short essay could be said to be Rhetorical
in nature, using the basis of accepted philosophy with a tint of opinion
and considered speculation. And it comes with Julian Cope's caveat "never
believe anything you read on the internet".